


ink and paper

by neverendingdream



Series: librarian ficlets [1]
Category: Wannabe Challenge (Visual Novel), 워너비챌린지 | Wannabe Challenge (Video Games)
Genre: A character study of sorts, Biho/Stories is the real ship of this fic sorry, F/M, Unnecessarily pretentious, i don't make the rules it just is
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-19
Updated: 2020-11-19
Packaged: 2021-03-10 02:42:25
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,037
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27626276
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/neverendingdream/pseuds/neverendingdream
Summary: Biho, and writing.
Relationships: (one sided), Kang Biho/Player Character
Series: librarian ficlets [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2019869
Comments: 6
Kudos: 8





	ink and paper

**Author's Note:**

> all i do is write stories about stories
> 
> this was written in response to a little prompt meme for [thestoryone](https://archiveofourown.org/users/thestoryone/pseuds/thestoryone) I posted on my [tumblr](https://dreamer-hyun.tumblr.com/post/635166801235476480/send-me-librarian-with-a-number-and-a)! 
> 
> (basically, send me a page number and a pairing and I'll write a fic/ficlet including a line from that page in a random book near me)  
> the prompt for this one was 78 and I chose Biho/MC as the pairing and this line: 
> 
> _‘For hours Miss Winter's voice had conjured another world, raising the dead for me, and I had seen nothing but the puppet show her words had made.’_ \- The Thirteenth Tale, Diane Setterfield

If you ask Biho why he likes stories, he’ll need as much time explaining as he does explaining why he feels drawn to the sea. 

He likes stories and the sea for the same reason, really, and he likes the poetry of thinking so, likes the way it looks inked down in neat, flowing words, though he’ll never say it aloud: it's about the freedom, the way you get lost in it— the sea of words woven into story, the ocean of possibility, the shimmering expanse of blue. 

He lives and breathes words, though he’s learned to not use them much, to keep them nestled at the tip of his tongue until they fade completely, and instead find their way out in the brushstrokes of his pen.

He’d heard his first story from his mother before he’d known the magic of word on paper, before he’d quite known where fantasy ended and reality begun. He’d instantly fallen in love. Because in stories, it didn’t matter if you were the poor bastard son of a father who’d never notice you— you were still _someone_ , and maybe your hardships meant something good was eventually to come.

He hadn’t been the only one. The rest of the servants’ children had loved stories too, they’d called them out to each other across the courtyard while sweeping, and their parents had whispered them around the dying fire during winter nights too cold to sleep. 

Biho and his mother hadn’t been a part of any of it— seen as too privileged, too favored to slum it with the rest of the servants, but too lowly to ever be anything but his father’s slaves. Still, his voice had been quiet, he’d been quieter still, and he’d crept close and listened, let his ears fill his heart with words, some spoken hastily, some clumsily, some brusque, but— words. They’d been better than any food except his mother’s kimchi jjigae. He’d often chose a meal of words over eating dinner, and his mother, on seeing his starry eyes after, hadn’t had the heart to scold him.

He learned— by observation, by hours of listening just beyond the edges of the fire’s flickering warmth— that the oldest servant (Halmeoni, she’d told them all to call her, and her ancient gaze and smile had seemed to include him, too) told the best stories, wove the most complex worlds from the chilly air and wrapped them warm around him and the rest of her captive audience. 

On the coldest night of the winter, Halmeoni had beckoned them all close, and Biho had brought his mother to listen in the shadows with him, her arm around his shoulders, his heart diving headfirst into story. For hours, Halmeoni’s voice had conjured another world, raising the dead for him, and he had seen nothing but the puppet show her words had made.

“Mom,” he’d whispered from between thin sheets after. “I...I want to be able to do that.”

She’d known from the beginning it would come to this— she’d read it in his awestruck eyes. She’d still smiled, and reached over to tousle his bright curls.

“Tell stories?”

“Mhm. Only… I don’t think I could tell them the way Halmeoni does. I— people say I’m not very good with words. With talking.”

“Biho-ah,” she’d said, and though her gentle voice had been as quiet as his, it had been forceful. “Don’t listen to them. Mom thinks you speak wonderfully, alright? And we can practice now, if you want.”

He’d been silent, but his hand had found her beneath the covers, and she’d felt the slightest tremble run through him.

“How about this, then? How about you tell stories, except with ink and paper?”

“Ink...and paper?” He’d repeated, words slow but full of hope.

He’d learned by the moonlight and precious stubs of candles. Scribbled strokes and characters until the edges of his sleeves were rimmed in the cheap ink his mother had bartered for, until they came out smooth and graceful, almost as pretty as he’d imagined.

He wrote. He wrote and his ink on paper brought him freedom, in waves starting in small ripples and ending in a dream of the sea.

“You have good handwriting,” his father complimented him once, for the first and last time.

The other children mocked him for it, but he ignored them, let their words sail over him as he knelt and traced out fragments of poetry, of half-imagined stories in the courtyard sand.

They sent him to the bookshop, and he haunted the aisles of shelves for as long as he could linger, until the day he’d overheard the book transcriber’s conversation, and had caught the opportunity washed up at his feet, bright as a pearl, a chance for freedom for his mother, a chance for her smile, for them to breathe in the sea-salt air.

The owner told him to write, gave him the finest inks and pens and paper to work with, a dream come true, a path to endless opportunity, a way out of the prison of what he and his mother had to call home.

Back then, he hadn’t thought he’d been allowed his own story. He hadn’t thought he deserved one.

He’d written to free his mother, to free himself, too. Only, of the stories he carefully inked onto pages, not a single word was his own.

He’d bowed his head. Kept his silence, and wrote on for the gold coins he’d known were to come. He found pride, in a way, in his work, even if deep in his heart he knew he had stories, words held on the tip of his inkbrush, waiting to be free, too. To be written into being, given shape, given form. 

He wishes, in hindsight, he’d written some of those stories too. For his mother, to show her the seaside not in person but through his storytelling, through his oceans of words, just once, before the end.

He knows better now.

When you ask him about writing, he tells you his dreams. He tells you he wants to write his feelings down, and what he means is that he hopes someday when you read them, they’ll reach your heart, too.

**Author's Note:**

> feel free to prompt me <333 my inbox is open no matter when you read this and I always have a book on standby


End file.
